Personality tests

In his article about personality tests for this week’s New Yorker (sadly, not online), Malcolm Gladwell offers a less-serious alternative to Myers-Briggs:

Once, for fun, a friend and I devised our own personality test. Like the M.B.T.I., it had four dimensions. The first is Canine/Feline. In romantic relationships, are you the pursuer, who runs happily to the door, tail wagging? Or are you the pursued? The second is More/Different. Is it your intellectual style to gather and master as much information as you can or make imaginative use of a discrete amount of information? The third is Insider/Outsider. Do you get along with your parents or do you define yourself outside your relationship with your mother and father? And finally, there is Nibbler/Gobbler. Do you work steadily, in small increments, or do everything at once, in a big gulp?

I think I’m pretty much a FDIN although I have definite M & G tendencies, along with a little bit of O. How about you? Also, crude poll time. It’s well known that there are really only two personality types: those who know their Myers-Briggs personality type by heart and those that do not. Which are you? (I only know the ‘I’ for sure because that’s a no brainer…dunno the rest.)

I get to be a FDIG, not a great acronym, but better than the INTJ I got from the Jung test. I wouldn’t take it to the bank of course, since the answers to all the questions can pretty much change as the day progresses. Interesting nontheless. I’m still trying to figure out why a LOTR poster shows up in a Google Images search for personality+tests

I took the test in 1989 and came out INFP; then took it in 2003 and came out ESTJ. I’ve changed a lot over those years, but come one. After the second test I can’t imagine taking the results seriously.

This is the first I’ve ever done a meyers-briggs and I too garnered an INTJ. Maybe it has less to do with kottke-specific readership and more to do with the personality type that would read a stranger’s diary on the internet.

I’m still trying to figure out why a LOTR poster shows up in a Google Images search for personality+tests

Hmm…that probably indicates something interesting about the personality of the Web.

I took the test in 1989 and came out INFP; then took it in 2003 and came out ESTJ. I’ve changed a lot over those years, but come one. After the second test I can’t imagine taking the results seriously.

That’s actually what Gladwell’s article is about…just how reliable are these tests anyway. As Jason noted, test results are contextual and dependent on your current mood, thoughts, etc.

I can’t recall my type, but I remember it was supposed to match my ideal career choice to being a radio personality. Speaking of which, perhaps I missed the linking, or perhaps your programming schedule puts Talk of the Nation on earlier in the day — but I’d checked your site during lunch and then drove home listening to Talk of the Nation discussing those same Personality Tests.

I’ve taken the Myers-Briggs test lots of times (on the web for fun, at work, in class). I score pretty consistently. I’ve found though, that I often have to fight myself to keep from answering how I want to be, instead of how I am. Depending on my mood, and how satisfied I am with my current personality, my results can change on a couple categories where I score very close to even.

I’m an ENTP and its a bit ridiculous how perfectly the profile fits me (most of the time.)

Interestingly, the small marketing consultancy I used to work for once had everyone do Myers-Briggs, and all seven project leaders and senior managers were ENTPs, and both of the support staff were matching types as well. Made me wonder if there was an ENTP-bias to the hiring process, or if ENTPs are just attracted to those jobs.

I’ve read that Introverts only make up about 25% of people and the same goes for iNtuitives, so someone who is both I and N is supposed to be very unique. The volume of INxx types here is making me think otherwise.

INTP here. IN__s are on the internet cause:
1) We like interacting over a computer screen rather than face-to-face.
2) Computer savvy people are more likely to be Ns with the whole systems and patterns preference. Ss are going to be off doing something tangible.

There’s a personals site called TypeTango (http://www.typetango.com/) that tries to match people using the MBPI. The statistics for that site show a heavy skew towards INFP, INTP, INTJ, INFJ types (http://www.typetango.com/statistics.php). The IN type likes systems, MBPI, whatever. [I’m an INTJ; but, I secretly want to be a friendly, loveable ENFP.]

ENFP checking in, which seems to make me an odd one out among bloggers/Net types/kottke visitors (however you define your set). CMOG by the redoubtable Gladwell’s test. Is it that INs are more likely to be on the Net, or that INs are more likely to use comments as a means of communication?

One of the other big personality tests is the Enneagram test, which is complementary to the MBTI, apparently. It speaks more about what your motivations are for acting the way you do, whereas the MBTI talks about how you act.

Also, Gladwell in the article notes that personality tests don’t account for the variability of human nature and are not very good at predicting behaviour well, but for once I’m not convinced by a Gladwell piece. The MBTI’s origins as a cod-philosophical adaptation of Jungian thinking are indeed dubious, but besides personal experiences of the tests, Gladwell doesn’t seem to marshal very strong evidence that these tests don’t predict future behaviour well, beyond a reference to Walter Mischel’s critique of personality tests.

This thread is closed to new comments. Thanks to everyone who responded.